Have you signed up to be a DIY MFA Radio Insider yet? This is an exciting new monthly newsletter especially for our podcast listeners. Every month, you’ll get an email from our podcast producer with recaps of the most recent episodes, a curated Listening List of episodes on a particular theme, and other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! The theme for January is Career Shifts, and you can become an insider by signing up with your email at diymfa.com/insiders.

In this episode Mary Robinette Kowal and I discuss:

• How she wrote a mash-up of old Hollywood glamour and a futuristic space setting.
• Why it was important to use fluid pronouns in this novel and what she learned writing it. 
• What she has learned over the course of writing ten books and how to reset.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal is the four-time Hugo, Locus, and Nebula Award-winning author of The Glamourist Histories series, Ghost Talkers, the Lady Astronaut Universe, and The Spare Man. She is a cast member of the award-winning podcast Writing Excuses and has received the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. Her stories appear in Asimov’s, Uncanny, and Year’s Best anthologies. Mary Robinette is a professional puppeteer, and she also performs as a voice actor (SAG/AFTRA), recording fiction for authors including Seanan McGuire, Cory Doctorow, and John Scalzi. She lives in Nashville with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters.

You can find her on her website or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Goodreads.

The Spare Man

Tesla Crane, a brilliant inventor and an heiress, is on her honeymoon on an interplanetary space liner, cruising between the Moon and Mars. She’s traveling incognito and is reveling in her anonymity. Then someone is murdered and the festering chowderheads who run security have the audacity to arrest her spouse. Armed with banter, martinis and her small service dog, Tesla is determined to solve the crime so that the newlyweds can get back to canoodling—and keep the real killer from striking again.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link where, if you choose to purchase via the link, DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 443

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 443: Writing Diverse Characters via Nuanced Shifts in Language – Interview with Mary Robinette Kowal appeared first on DIY MFA.

Have you signed up to be a DIY MFA Radio Insider yet? This is an exciting new monthly newsletter, especially for our podcast listeners. Every month, you’ll get an email from our podcast producer with recaps of the most recent episodes, a curated Listening List of episodes on a particular theme, and other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! The theme for June is Young Adult, and you can become an insider by signing up with your email at diymfa.com/insiders.

In this episode Rebecca Scherm and Lori discuss:

• The psychic toll writing near-future speculative fiction can take on a parent.
• Why it is so important to safeguard your passion and her advice for doing so.
• What she means when she says she has a conversation with a genre.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Rebecca Scherm

Rebecca Scherm is the author of Unbecoming. She lives in California with her family.

You can find her on her website or follow her on Twitter and Instagram. 

For anyone interested in climate activist gardening that ordinary people can do on any scale available to them, Rebecca recommends looking at Doug Tallamy’s Homegrown National Parks project, which you can find here https://homegrownnationalpark.org/. She also recommends Tallamy’s books on the topic, especially Nature’s Best Hope: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants

A House Between Earth and the Moon

For twenty years, Alex has believed that his gene-edited super-algae will slow and even reverse the effects of climate change. His obsession with his research has jeopardized his marriage, his relationships with his kids, and his own professional future. When the Son sisters, founders of the colossal tech company Sensus, offer him a chance to complete his research, he seizes the opportunity. The catch? His lab will be in outer space on Parallaxis, the first-ever luxury residential space station built for billionaires. Alex and six other scientists leave Earth and their loved ones to become Pioneers, the beta tenants of Parallaxis.

But Parallaxis is not the space palace they were sold. Day and night, the embittered crew builds the facility under pressure from Sensus, motivated by the promise that their families will join them. At home on Earth, much of the country is ablaze in wildfires and battered by storms. In Michigan, Alex’s teenage daughter, Mary Agnes, struggles through high school with the help of the ubiquitous Sensus phones implanted in everyone’s ears, archiving each humiliation, and wishing she could go to Parallaxis with her father—but her mother will never allow it.

The Pioneers are the beta testers of another program, too: Sensus is designing an algorithm that will predict human behavior. Katherine Son hires Tess, a young social psychologist, to watch the experiment’s subjects through their phones—including not only the Pioneers, but Katherine’s sister, Rachel. Tess begins to develop an intimate, obsessive relationship with her subjects. When Tess and Rachel travel to Parallaxis, the controlled experiment begins to unravel.

Prescient and insightful, A House Between Earth and the Moon is at once a captivating epic about the machinations of big tech and profoundly intimate meditation on the unmistakably human bonds that hold us together.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 412

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 412: Climate Change and Big Tech: Writing the Near Future – Interview with Rebecca Scherm appeared first on DIY MFA.

Now, we’ve already debunked the myths associated with Speculative Fiction, slain the 7 deadly sins, appreciated the storytelling elements with some awesome books, and worked on world building. What’s next? Motivation.

Here are 4 things about speculative fiction that could inspire the motivation to get those words on the pages. And it goes beyond your dreams of seeing your name on the cover—your writing can help your future readers.

Motivation 1: Speculative fiction can build mental resilience.

First things first, I am a psychology graduate. It is probably my fifth language, only because the first four spots are already occupied. And I’m here to share something I learned during my personal research to satiate my psychology craving.

You can help people (especially young audiences) to cope with anxiety and stress by putting your speculative story out there. It is not a discovery that literature is the mirror of society. But when you add the “What if” element to your stories, you are encouraging your readers to think outside of the box.

Your story must have a conflict. Perhaps it is something grounded in reality with a touch of speculative elements. Or it is completely based on fantasy. When your characters survive and learn to cope with uncertainties and learn life lessons, you’re giving your readers the hope they can do it too.

In the most uncertain times, what’s a better message than to tell the readers that they can shape their lives too?

Motivation 2: You can send a wave of change.

Raise your hands if you’ve read the Hunger Games trilogy! 

Well, what was your first reaction to the games itself? My guess is, they turned you off. A minor spoiler alert: Hunger Games is nothing if not a direct reflection on the horrors of war.

I remember reading the trilogy for the first time as a teenager and thinking about the many social issues Suzanne Collins packed in her Hunger Games trilogy. How horrible it all was and developed my own thoughts on all that I read and beyond that.

Now, of course, Panem was a world unlike mine, that helped me leave my biases at the door when I began. But by the end, I had not only looked at everything from an unbiased perspective but developed a viewpoint that could also resonate with my reality. Often, such perspectives can spark a debate that lights the fire of change.

Pretty cool how you, too, can do it by getting your story out there, right?

Motivation 3: You can help develop empathy.

Don’t just take my word for it. But several researches show your speculative fiction story can help develop ethical thinking, emotional intelligence, and empathy! Perspective-taking is your keyword here. We all must have one book in our library where the narrator wasn’t someone we could really like, but we go on this incredible journey to experience the world through their eyes.

Our need for closure, or cognitive closure, decreases. This is our desire to get a direct and firm answer instead of an ambiguous one. Resisting this means you are more comfortable accepting other perspectives, more empathetic, more emotionally intelligent, more thoughtful, and, of course, more creative.

Your story doesn’t need an unlikeable narrator. The “what if” element is good enough to resist cognitive closure.

Motivation 4: You can help someone make sense of the world.

Speculative Fiction is beyond “what if.” It stabilizes your readers in the “now.” You take the approach of a “what if” question and ask it in the “now.” 

What if a Metroid hit the earth? What if you could time travel to the future? What if aliens invaded Earth? 

It could be anything for that matter, but in your story, it is happening in the now for your characters.

The characters making sense of the world helps readers look at their own world and make sense of it. Much like how I did as a teenager after reading the Hunger Games trilogy. 

Sometimes it can hit closer home. What’s the temperature where you’re living? It’s 40 degrees Celsius here already when we’re supposed to be enjoying spring. Global warming took spring from us here and no one is happy about it! 

I recently came across a fantasy story about a time in the near future when water has become a luxury. That hit closer to home than an alien invasion, for sure. 

But here’s the thing: speculative fiction poses questions in readers’ minds and helps them make sense of the world in a new light.

Share Your Wisdom!

Come on now, give your readers the wisdom of sight that only your story can provide. If that doesn’t give you the motivation to write, I don’t know what will.

And the next time we meet, let us talk about some emerging trends in speculative fiction and how we can use (and avoid) them to help our writing journey. Until then!

Tell us in the comments: What is your motivation for writing speculative fiction?

Disha Walia is a lifelong storyteller and an enthusiastic writer and editor in love with the idea of exploring the creative world of words. While making her space in the world of non-fiction and fiction alike, Disha loves to spend even her free time daydreaming about what next to write. Connect with her on www.quillinary.com. You can also follow her on Instagram and Twitter.

The post Find Your Motivation for Writing Speculative Fiction appeared first on DIY MFA.

In addition to looking at what present-day data scientists and engineers had to say about it, I also looked at our cultural history. From Enkidu being formed from clay in the Epic of Gilgamesh to HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, why are we so fascinated with finding different, more complicated ways to create people-like entities? 

What’s fascinating in this tour of literature’s history of humans creating artificial intelligence is the different ways we see ourselves benefitting from this process. While having biological offspring fulfills certain social and instinctual needs for a species, creating artificial intelligence usually involves some sort of goal—a servant class, a problem solver, etc. 

Further, where do writers fall in all of this? After all, we’re creating characters. While these aren’t independent entities with their own agency and ability to affect the world outside their stories (though following that logic Wes Craven’s inventive film 1994 New Nightmare, in which his characters come alive, is interesting to think about), we’re pouring backstories and motivations and personal relationships into people that don’t exist. Why do we do it? What’s in it for humans to invent worlds and people, either on paper or inside machines or even in the real world? 

It’s something I don’t have an answer to, but reading the books below might offer some insight into this impulse for creating artificial intelligence that we all seem to share.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick

One thing Philip K. Dick’s story did was bring about a real noir-style depth to the creations of science fiction. It wasn’t just beeping robots clunking after human masters. These were, for all intents and purposes, human beings. And they’re treated as second-class citizens at best, and dangerous elements at worst. Dick even dives a bit into a form of simulation hypothesis over who is and who is not human. If you were an android, would you know it? 

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The original modern tale of man creating man. Mary Shelley’s influential work is considered the first entry into the world of science fiction and certainly the first science fiction horror novel. A young scientist wants to stitch together disparate body parts and run an electrical current through them to see if he can beget a living thing, just because he can. It’s about hubris and the stupidity of science for science’s sake. The Creature Frankenstein creates is not just sentient but develops a deep internal world that is ultimately his creator’s undoing, not unlike the tale of Adam and Eve in the garden. 

Fall, or Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson 

Neal Stephenson’s Fall; or, Dodge in Hell is one part science fiction as characters utilize brain scans to recreate neural networks in digital space as a form of afterlife, and one art fantasy as that world becomes its own thriving landscape with creation myths and everything. It plays into the idea of simulation hypothesis as well as looking at topics around the super affluent finding ways to cheat death through the use of artificial intelligence. 

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

This bizarre, apocalyptic story from Margaret Atwood deals with a lot of science fiction elements: artificially created plague as well as the development of a human subspecies. The titular Crake, in part of his bid to bring about an extinction event, develops a new breed of almost-human beings that he engineered with certain traits and beliefs. It’s less about the individual lives of artificially created intelligence and more a look at what artificially created life would look like and what sort of twisted mind thinks of such a plot. 

Dune by Frank Herbert

The interesting thing about Frank Herbert’s Dune is that it took a different approach to artificial intelligence. Nick Bostrom points out in his 2012 book Superintelligence, that one way we might achieve artificial intelligence at a superhuman level is to “breed” it into the human gene pool by essentially ensuring Einstein-like people mix genes with other Einstein-like people. That’s kind of what the Bene Gesserit are doing with their breeding program to bring about their superintelligent messiah. They manufacture a mind that would act as a guide for the rest of humanity. It’s even more interesting considering that within the world of Dune, intelligent computers are forbidden thanks to a historic catastrophe around artificial intelligence. 

Tell us in the comments: what are your favorite books about creating artificial intelligence?

Melanie Moyer is a Philadelphia-based author of two novels and several short stories. Her short work has appeared in Philadelphia Stories. Ghost Parachute, and others. 

You can find her on her Website or follow her on Instagram and Twitter.

The post #5onFri: Five Sci-Fi Books about Humans Creating Artificial Intelligence appeared first on DIY MFA.

I thought it might be fun to take a look at how the element of time travel creates a tangent between historical fiction and sci-fi.

A Visualization

As in the earlier article, it seemed like a picture might be useful for discussing the relationship and interplay of the genres.

If a narrative’s time travelers always go to the future, then the story remains solidly in the realm of science fiction. The genre junction occurs when the characters travel to the past.

The Author’s Basic Responsibility

Regardless of the basic premise or genre of the story—whether it’s romance or a mystery or fantasy or even horror—when an author embraces time travel as a mechanism for revealing the plot, they share the same responsibilities as the historical fiction author. 

They must research the time period in which their characters will land. That portion of the narrative that occurs in the past must be authentic in every respect. The details of everyday life. Clothing. Events occurring in the larger world in which the characters must exist. The language of the time and place. Food, medicine, tools, gender roles. All the elements of authenticity that we’ve discussed in other articles for this column, including the less savory ones. An author can’t send characters back to the US in the first half of the nineteenth century without acknowledging the existence of slavery.

The Author’s Added Responsibility

Beyond that, authors who use time travel have some additional responsibilities related to when their characters become aware of traveling backward in time.

Is the time travel intentional? Do the characters return to the past of their own volition for their own particular purposes? In such stories, the characters must have a pre-awareness of how the past will differ from their present. Most likely, their intention is to fit in from the moment of their arrival in the earlier time period, so preparation is required. At a very minimum, they must be dressed in the proper clothing before undertaking the travel so that they don’t stick out like a sore thumb wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops when they materialize among the Barbary Pirates in 16th-century Algiers. 

In the manuscript that was the inspiration for this column, the author was careful to show the characters’ preparation for the journey, including subtle details like the acquisition of coins that wouldn’t be suspect in the target era so that the characters could buy food and temporary lodgings while they were getting themselves established.

The other side of the awareness coin for intentional time travelers is anachronism awareness—knowing what they must leave behind. A cell phone or a modern firearm during the Napoleonic wars is just wrong on so many levels. For the author, however, anachronisms are a rich opportunity for creating or exacerbating conflict in the narrative.

And then, of course, there’s the time-travel mechanism. If it’s a physical device, how do the characters prevent discovery? That’s probably a little easier in a genre where spoken incantations or mystical use of ordinary objects is permissible.

But what if the characters are transported back in time at the whim of some other characters or some other force within the story? For such tales, the author must be prepared to provide time-period-plausible cover stories for the characters while they figure out where they are and what they’re going to do about it. Or perhaps bumbling cover stories that only sort of ring true and serve to heighten the suspense by raising suspicions about this character that has just appeared as if from nowhere into the ordinary lives of people native to the time period.

Regardless, when science fiction meets “The Past,” it only works successfully when the author embraces the same guiding principles that are the bread and butter of historical fiction authors.

An award-winning author of historical fiction and a freelance editor, Pamela Taylor loves helping others polish their stories almost as much as she enjoys writing her own. She’s a member of the DFW Writers Workshop and the Editorial Freelancers Association and for four years was on the judges panel for the Ink & Insights Writing Contest. She shares her home with two Welsh Corgis who frequently remind her that a dog walk is a great way to get inspiration for that next chapter.

The post Time Travel: When Sci-Fi Meets Historical Fiction appeared first on DIY MFA.

Ken Liu

Ken Liu is author of the Dandelion Dynasty silkpunk series and the translator behind Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem and Death’s End. He’s written a Star War, too, but the book I’ll direct you to is his short fiction collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories. The titular story is about a boy whose mother makes him origami animals that appear to come to life when she breathes on them. “The Paper Menagerie” was the first piece of short fiction to win the triple crown of science fiction and fantasy awards, the Hugo, the Nebula, and the World Fantasy Award.

Nghi Vo

The Chosen and the Beautiful is Nghi Vo’s debut novel (published June 1, 2021), but she’s had great success with her novellas, The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Hugo, Locus, and Ignyte Award finalist, winner of the Reddit Stabby and IAFA’s Crawford Awards) and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain.

She’s also published a lot of short fiction. Read her at any length you choose; Nghi Vo’s one to watch.

Aliette de Bodard

Aliette de Bodard has won three Nebula Awards, a Locus Award, a European Science Fiction Society award, a British Fantasy Award and four British Science Fiction Association Awards for her short fiction, novellas, and novels. She is of French and Vietnamese descent and though her first language is French, she writes in English.

Last year the sapphic romantic fantasy Fireheart Tiger was released, in which a diplomat princess faces her former lover and must decide both her future as well as that of her country.

Isabel Yap

Isabel Yap is a Filipino writer of speculative fiction and poetry. Her first collection of short fiction, Never Have I Ever, contains 13 stories that entwine fantasy, horror, and science fiction to explore monsters, Filipino folklore, immigration, and queerness.

In “A Cup of Salt Tears,” Makino’s mother warns her of the dangers of making deals with kappas even though a kappa saved Makino as a child. When Makino’s husband becomes ill, she seeks out her savior. In “Hurricane Heels (We Go Down Dancing),” a group of five girls befriend one another at a summer camp when a goddess charges them with protecting the world from darkness.

Yap admits to liking ambiguous endings, so be prepared for a few of those when you pick this collection up.

Yoon Ha Lee

Yoon Ha Lee’s space opera trilogy, The Machineries of Empire, is comprised of Ninefox Gambit (2016; Locus Award for best first novel, Hugo and Nebula finalist), Raven Stratagem (2017; Hugo finalist), and Revenant Gun (2018; Hugo finalist).

Phoenix Extravagant is a standalone fantasy set in a world reminiscent of Korea during the Japanese occupation of the early 1900s. Jebi is a nonbinary artist hired by the Ministry of Armour to paint magical sigils onto masks for the conquering government’s automata. Jebi doesn’t consider themselves political, but after befriending a pacifist dragon automata (as one does), Jebi decides they’ll do whatever it takes to keep the dragon from becoming a weapon of war used to kill and subdue their people. Unfortunately, Jebi discovers that sometimes you have to choose a side.

Ted Chiang

Ted Chiang’s work has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award (now the Amazing) for Best New Writer, and four Locus awards. His short story “Story of Your Life” was the basis of the film Arrival (2016).

In Exhalation, Chiang examines technology’s effect on humanity. The opening story, “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” a portal leads people 20 years into the future or 20 years into the past. Time-travel shenanigans of the best kind.

Fonda Lee

Fonda Lee’s debut young-adult novel, Zeroboxer, was nominated for the 2016 Andre Norton Award. Her second novel for young-adults, Exo, was nominated for the 2018 Andre Norton Award. Her debut novel for adults, Jade City, was a finalist for the 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novel and won the 2018 World Fantasy Award.

Jade City, the thrilling first book in the Green Bone trilogy takes place on the gangster-controlled island of Kekon, where magical jade grants superhuman powers to those who can wear it. The Kaul family is one of two major crime syndicates that control the city. When a rival syndicate threatens their authority, the three Kaul siblings must band together to protect their power. Jade War was published in 2019, and the third novel, Jade Legacy, will be published in November of 2021.

Gabriela interviewed Fonda Lee about world building for DIY MFA radio.

Shveta Thakrar

Shveta Thakrar characterizes herself as a part-time nagini and full-time believer in magic. Her work has appeared in magazines and anthologies including Enchanted Living, Uncanny Magazine, A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, and Toil & Trouble. Her debut young adult fantasy novel, Star Daughter, is a finalist for the 2021 Andre Norton Nebula Award.

In Star Daughter, Sheetal Mistry is (surprise!) the daughter of a star, but she manages to live a mostly normal life until her nascent abilities surface and will not be denied. When, through a surge of uncontrolled magic, Sheetal’s father ends up in a coma, she and her friend embark on a journey to the stars to seek her mother’s help. What Sheetal finds when she arrives is political turmoil and … a magical music competition.

Roshani Chokshi

Roshani Chokshi’s New York Times bestselling series include The Star-Touched Queen duology, The Gilded Wolves, and Aru Shah and The End of Time, which was recently optioned for film by Paramount Pictures. Her work has been nominated for the Locus and Nebula awards.

In The Star-Touched Queen, a YA fantasy rich in world building and Indian mythology, Maya lives a relative life of freedom thanks to a cursed horoscope that predicts death and destruction following her marriage. Then her father marries her off and she becomes the queen of Arkan. Romance and hijinx (preventing the aforementioned death and destruction) ensue.

Renée Ahdieh

Renée Ahdieh is an American-Korean author, best known for her New York Times best-selling duology The Wrath & the Dawn. Imagine Entertainment optioned the film rights to the duology in 2017. Ahdieh says she loves to wreak havoc on the lives of her characters.

In the first novel of the duology, The Wrath & the Dawn, Ahdieh reimagines The Arabian Nights. The evil Caliph, Khalid, marries a new woman every night and murders her in the morning. When 16-year-old Shahrzad’s best friend becomes one of his victims, Shahrzad vows vengeance and volunteers to become his next bride. Every night she spins tales to her husband to postpone her execution but, as night follows night, Shahrzad fails to find the monster she expected in Khalid.

Read with Purpose

One of the core tenets of the DIY MFA philosophy is to read with purpose. In reading the works of AAPI authors, you may encounter plot structures or storytelling techniques that are different from, but equally effective to, the western ones you’ve become familiar with. The core myths and legends from which these stories derive may also be unfamiliar. Expand your writerly horizons and dig in.

These authors and their stories deserve both your reader brain (enjoyment) and your writer brain (analysis).

Until next time, keep speculating, and see where it leads you!

Melanie is an instructional designer by day, SF&F author-in-progress and ink alchemist by night. She is the third generation of Marttilas to live in her little house on the street that bears her family name. She blogs at https://www.melaniemarttila.ca and you can find her on Facebook and
Twitter.

The post Ten AAPI Sci-Fi/Fantasy Authors to Read Right Now appeared first on DIY MFA.

Originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, Simon Stephenson is a writer and screenwriter now living in LA (with stop-overs in London and San Francisco along the way). 

His first book was the memoir Let Not The Waves Of The Sea, about losing his brother Dominic in the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. It won Best First Book at the Scottish Book Awards in 2011. His most recent novel, Set My Heart To Five, was released in summer 2020 and this is what we’ll be discussing today.

In this episode Simon and I discuss:

• His method for writing a “mis-topia” future and how that differs from a dystopia.
• Why writing a character without feelings allows you to explore feelings more.
• What role movies played in developing his protagonist and the plot.

Plus, his #1 tip for writers.

About Simon Stephenson

Simon Stephenson is originally from Scotland, but now lives in Los Angeles, California. He was born in 1978, an auspicious year already renowned for bringing the world such inimitable cultural treasures as the Bee Gees’ Sergeant Pepper’s movie, and the Star Wars Holiday Special.

A junior library cormorant from a young age, the arrival of the first series of ER on television diverted him from his inevitable English major to medical school. A less impressionable teenager would probably have understood that what he was drawn to was story and not hospitals, but we live and learn.

His first book Let Not The Waves Of The Sea, a memoir about the loss of his brother Dominic in the Indian Ocean tsunami, was written around his hospital shifts and published in 2011. It was serialized on BBC Radio 4 and won Best First Book at the Scottish Book Awards.

By now working as a children’s doctor in London, he next wrote a screenplay about a depressed children’s doctor who desperately needs to make a major change in his life. He remains unsure where this idea magically sprung from, but the script – in which the doctor travels to a life-altering conference in San Francisco – came third on the Annual Blacklist of Hollywood’s favorite screenplays and opened the door to a screenwriting career in the US. In an irony not lost on Simon, he subsequently got a job writing a movie at Pixar Animation Studios in San Francisco.

He has lived in the US since 2013. As a screenwriter, he originated and wrote Amazon’s forthcoming Louis Wain, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy. He also has a small credit on everybody’s favorite bear sequel, Paddington 2.

He got the idea for his new novel while living in the Bay Area, a place where the near future can sometimes seem very near indeed. Set in a 2054 where Elon Musk has incinerated the moon, it tells the story of Jared, a biological android who learns to feel by watching old movies and then sets out to write a movie of his own. Many of the lessons Jared learns might well be the same ones he has learned on his own writing journey, but one he did not learn is about the importance of short titles. His novel is called Set My Heart To Five; despite this, it has nonetheless been optioned by the director Edgar Wright to hopefully make a movie of its own.

You can follow Simon on Twitter.

Set My Heart to Five

Set in a 2054 where humans have locked themselves out of the internet and Elon Musk has incinerated the moon, Set My Heart to Five is the hilarious yet profoundly moving story of one android’s emotional awakening.

One day at a screening of a classic movie, Jared notices a strange sensation around his eyes. Bots are not permitted to have feelings, but as the theater lights come on, Jared discovers he is crying.

Soon overwhelmed by powerful emotions, Jared heads west, determined to find others like himself. But a bot with feelings is a dangerous proposition, and Jared’s new life could come to an end before it truly begins. Unless, that is, he can somehow change the world for himself and all of his kind.

Unlike anything you have ever read before, Set My Heart to Five is a love letter to outsiders everywhere. Plus it comes uniquely guaranteed to make its readers weep a minimum of 29mls of tears.*

*Book must be read in controlled laboratory conditions arranged at reader’s own expense. Other terms and conditions may apply to this offer.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 350

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 350: Voice, Emotion, and Metastory in a “Mistopia” – Interview with Simon Stephenson appeared first on DIY MFA.

Did I mention this event is totally free? 

The Sci-Fi/Fantasy Line-Up

We worked really hard to put together a diverse and interesting set of interviews that covered all aspects of writing and publishing science fiction and fantasy. But even if Sci-Fi/Fantasy isn’t your jam, you can still get a lot of good information and advice from these interviews.

Here is our line-up and little bit of information about each interview:

Introduction to Speculative Fiction: Interview with Ada Palmer

In this interview, Ada and Gabriela discuss why human beings need and want an origin story. They also developed a working definition for sci-fi, fantasy, magical realism, and horror. They talk about the role and influence of history in speculative fiction. Ada explains what she means when she says history doesn’t repeat itself. Ada also talks about why she believes sci-fi and fantasy are great tools for galvanizing activism.

Story Structure in a Time Travel Narrative: Interview with Constance Sayers

In this interview, Constance and Gabriela discuss why she wrote in a linear manner as opposed to interlocking the narratives and how she avoided getting overwhelmed when writing multiple storylines. Constance talks about the writerly devices she used to connect her characters as they developed. She also explains her decision to use multiple points of view to create closeness. Constance and Gabriela discuss ways her book differs from a pure time travel narrative. Lastly, they talk about Constance’s intentional use of different locations throughout her novel.

Whose Story Is It? Point of View in a Dystopian Tale: Interview with Rob Hart

In this interview, Rob and Gabriela discuss how his start in journalism helped his later career as an author. They also talk about correlations between a smash Broadway musical and matters of storytelling. Rob explains his method for playing three point of view characters off each other and why fiction can be a more powerful vehicle for tackling heavy concepts. They discuss what happens when the speculative aspects of fiction meet reality. Lastly, Rob talks about his method for collecting and organizing ideas for future Sci-Fi/Fantasy projects.

The Politics of Voice: Interview with Curdella Forbes

In this interview, Curdella and Gabriela discuss how a relative’s storytelling style influenced her approach to her writing and what books and stories were a large part of her formative years. Curdella reveals which Nobel-winning author she is often compared to (and why she doesn’t mind!). They talk about why the Caribbean provides such a rich background for telling stories. They also discuss how magical realism has elements of sci-fi and what question they have in common. Curdella shares her advice for seamlessly using vernacular throughout her story.

Creating Dynamic Characters through Conflict: Interview with Fonda Lee

In this interview, Fonda and Gabriela talk about why speculative fiction is more character-driven than many people think and how dynamics between characters can ripple in or ripple out to create conflict. Fonda explains the advantages (and challenges) of writing multiple points of view in fantasy. Fonda talks about what role status can play in creating three-dimensional characters. They discuss why you should put your characters in situations where there are no good choices. Lastly, they talk about the differences and similarities between antagonists and villains.

World Building in Noir Fantasy: Interview with Dan Stout

In this interview, Dan and Gabriela talk about how similes and metaphors can become more powerful in fantasy novels. They discuss the importance of small touches in world building and how to use them effectively, and why world building is like going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. Dan gives advice on ways to balance the fantastical and common elements of a mixed-genre plot. Dan also shares how he created a non-episodic sequel to his noir novel. Dan gives his take on writing book two and avoiding the sophomore slump.

Cracking the Code of Middle Grade Sci-Fi: Interview with Nicole Valentine

In this interview, Nicole and Gabriela identify the intersection between sci-fi and fantasy and the difference between hard and soft sci-fi. They explore how writing for Middle Grade readers differs from writing for adult readers. Nicole explains the research process for her book and the ways it resembled planning a bank heist. Nicole and Gabriela also talk about why being a programmer prepared her for becoming an author. Nicole shares her thoughts on the healing powers of wonder and awe and how to provide that in books. Finally, Nicole talks about what she is doing to close the gender gap in Upper Middle Grade fiction.

Crossing Boundaries and Managing Reader Expectations: Interview with Leanna Nicole Hieber

In this interview, Leanna identifies which classic author was her gateway to spooky, paranormal fiction. Leanna and Gabriela talk about how she juggles being at the intersection of multiple genres. Leanna shares her method for managing reader expectations. Leanna and Gabriela discuss why it was so important to create a diverse cast set in a historically repressive period and what she does to create an immersive world without creating an info dump. Lastly, Leanna talks about how she balances multiple jobs, how they interrelate, and why that’s useful.

Race, Capitalism, and the Multiverse: Interview with Micaiah Johnson

In this interview, Micaiah shares her writing process—and whether she is a planner or a pantser. Micaiah and Gabriela discuss why she likes her secondary characters more than her main characters. They also talk about how an outsider status can provide clarity through increased observation. They also discuss what made her focus on the haves and the have nots in her novel. Also, Micaiah reveals why she chose to break her world’s rules by the end of chapter two. Finally, they discuss genre harvesting and how that helped her create some great plot twists.

A Publishing Imprint of One: Interview with Glynn Stewart

In this interview, Glynn and Gabriela discuss why he shifted his thinking about self-publishing and how that made all the difference. Glynn shares what it means to write as creative versus as commodity and the third path he chose. They share tips on how to connect with your ideal readers, even ones who aren’t able to find you easily. Glynn reveals his process for doing due diligence when he writes diverse points of view. Glynn and Gabriela talk about the possibilities for creating unexpected non-human characters in your stories. They also discuss how he manages to be so prolific, while also maintaining the quality of his work.

Craft Your Career and Build a Body of Work: Interview with Chuck Wendig

In this interview, Chuck and Gabriela discuss how his latest book ultimately broke his writing process—and why that’s good. They share tips on what writers can do to create a separate space for their writing if they can’t leave home. Chuck talks about why social media doesn’t actually help make sales and what it does instead. They talk about the need for writers to take more ownership of the business side of their career. Chuck reveals how he stays informed on the latest in publishing and how to discern what is worthwhile. Lastly, they talk about why it’s important to evolve and modulate your voice throughout your Sci-Fi/Fantasy writing career.

Whew! That was a lot of ground! So many awesome Sci-Fi/Fantasy writers! I hope you’ll sign up one or more of those interviews. Again, you can sign up by clicking here. But don’t delay—sign-ups close on December 6. If you have any questions about the summit, don’t hesitate to email support@DIYMFA.

Lori Walker is the Operations Maven at DIY MFA. Though she’s fallen off the wagon as a writer, she’s hoping to return to writing essays (perhaps even a novel!) through her involvement with DIY MFA. She also teaches yoga part-time in Smalltown, Oklahoma, where she lives with her husband and their cat, Joan Didion. You can follow her on Instagram at @LoriTheWriter.

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Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

I first encountered Roanhorse’s work through the first book in the Sixth World series, Trail of Lightning. Her 2018 release went on to win a Locus Award. Both Trail of Lightning and Storm of Locusts, the second book, are set in Dinétah, after floods, fire, and famine transform the rest of the world. A side effect of this climate catastrophe is that the gods and monsters of ancient story walk among humans. Fortunately, Maggie Hoskie, also known as War Child, makes her living hunting monsters. 

Black Sun is Roanhorse’s most recent publication, set in a fantasy world based on the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas. The protagonist Xiala, a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind, arrives in the city of Tova on the day of an eclipse, an event said to unbalance the world.

Bonus: On her recent My Favorite Bit feature on Mary Robinette Kowal’s blog, Roanhorse shares some of her playlist for Black Sun.

Rebecca Roanhorse is of Ohkay Owingeh (Pueblo) and African American heritage, and her husband and daughter are Diné.

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

Waubgeshig Rice was host of northeastern Ontario’s CBC afternoon radio show, Up North at the time Moon of the Crusted Snow was published. I attended a reading and bought the book on the spot.

Moon of the Crusted Snow is a post-apocalyptic novel set in a small northern Anishinaabe community. Rumors of trouble in larger cities to the south precede an early winter. First, the power goes out, then the phones and the internet, leaving the community completely isolated. As they struggle to survive, strangers begin to arrive, disrupting the community’s precarious balance.

Waubgeshig Rice is an Anishinaabe writer, journalist, and radio host from the Wasauksing First Nation.

Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson

I started reading Eden Robinson on Waubgeshig Rice’s recommendation.

Son of a Trickster is the first book in the aptly named Trickster trilogy. It tells the take of Jared, a teen who sells weed cookies and tries to take care of his family. Weird thing is that crows talk to him and he keeps losing time. When a young woman with eclectic taste and a penchant for protest moves into the neighbourhood, Jared is attracted to her, but not because of the way she looks. Whenever he sees her, she has lights like fireflies dancing around her …

I loved Son of a Trickster and the follow up, Trickster Drift. The third novel, Return of the Trickster, is coming out in the spring. Bonus: If you’re like me and can’t wait for more Robinson, you may want to watch CBC’s adaptation, Trickster. The first season started October 6^th, and you can catch it on CBC’s streaming service Gem.

Bonus bonus: While you’re there, click through to CBC Listen, where they’ve put together a Trickster playlist including A Tribe Called Red, Snotty Nosed Rez Kids, Tanya Tagaq, Iskwé, and more.

Eden Robinson is a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations.

Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline

Unsurprisingly, Cherie Dimaline was another recommendation from Waubgeshig Rice.

In Empire of Wild, Dimaline uses the Métis legend of the Rogarou to tell the story of married couple Joan and Victor. Victor has been missing for over a year. Just when Joan thinks she’s never going to see him again, she runs into him—or at least something that looks like him. 

If you like Empire of Wild, you may want to check out The Marrow Thieves, in which global warming has resulted in the inability of almost everyone to dream. Indigenous people are immune, however, and now they’re being hunted by Recruiters, who harvest their bone marrow for its dream-giving properties.

Cherie Dimaline is a Métis writer from the Georgian Bay Métis Nation.

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

Future Home of the Living God is a dystopian novel set in a future world in which the babies being born seem to be devolving. Cedar Hawk Songmaker is four months pregnant, and she decides to try to find her biological mother. Along the way, the US crumbles under the threats of martial law and Christian dogma. Erdich’s other novels aren’t SFnal, so this may be an entry into her more literary work.

Louise Erdrich is Anishinaabe and an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.

Just the Beginning of the Journey

There are so many excellent books across genres and age categories being produced by Indigenous people worldwide. While this trend has received a bump in recent years, Indigenous literature has a long and award-winning history. You owe it to yourselves to open the pages of books by these amazing storytellers.

Here are just a couple of places to start your journey:

• https://bookriot.com/sff-books-by-indigenous-authors/
• https://theportalist.com/indigenous-authors-sci-fi-fantasy

Until next time, keep speculating and see where it leads you!

Melanie Marttila creates worlds from whole cloth. She’s a dreamsinger, an ink alchemist, and an unabashed learning mutt. Her speculative short fiction has appeared in Bastion Science Fiction Magazine, On Spec Magazine, and Sudbury Ink and her speculative poetry has appeared in Polar Borealis and Stellar Evolutions. She lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, where she spends her days working as a corporate trainer. She blogs at https://www.melaniemarttila.ca and you can find her on Facebook and Twitter.

The post Indigenous Sci-Fi and Fantasy Authors to Read Now appeared first on DIY MFA.

Sixty-four days later, on August 2, 2020, the Crew Dragon capsule returned Behken and Hurley to Earth. They splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico, not far from Pensacola, Florida.

The mission, called Demo-2, certified that Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 could be used to deliver future astronauts to the ISS. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk dubbed it the dawn of a new age of space exploration.

Hurley called the journey from the shuttle program to the public-private collaboration between NASA and SpaceX an eight-year odyssey and described his feeling of accomplishment upon landing as unbelievable. It’s truly an unprecedented achievement in the midst of an unprecedented year.

How can this collaboration inspire your own creative projects? Here are a few ideas to get you started.

A Little Help

Knowing that the shuttle program was ending, NASA made a deal with Russia to launch missions from Kasakhstan using Soyuz rockets. They’ve depended exclusively on this assistance for most of the last decade despite political differences and conflicts.

Application to Your Writing

Regardless of whether your space program is planet-bound or intergalactic, there are going to be times when your astronauts will have to have to depend on friends, friendlies, frenemies, or even outright enemies for help. It’s an opportunity to create meaningful conflict in your story.

Competition Fuels Conflict

As early as the 1980s, American entrepreneur Peter Diamandis founded the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) program. In the 90s, Diamandis upped the ante by offering the X Prize for radical breakthroughs that benefit humanity. Paul Allen won the Ansari X Prize with his White Knight One, which was then licensed by Richard Branson and used as the basis for Virgin Galactic.

Today, Branson’s Virgin Galactic, Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Starshot form the “Billionaire Space Race.” While each has specialized to a degree, they all grew out of the SEDS program and the X Prize competitions. Off-loading this next phase of innovation to private interests allowed NASA to focus on longer-term projects.

Application to Your Writing

Competition is a conflict generator. Just think of the possibilities for corporate espionage and sabotage.

It’s All about Succession Planning

It doesn’t seem to be coincidence that SEDS and X Prize extended the drive for space exploration to private investment at around the same time that the shuttle program was aging, experiencing increasing technical difficulties, and outright tragedies. I’m confident that negotiations with Russia for use of their Soyuz rockets started long before the last shuttle flew in 2011.

This is a matter of succession planning, of anticipating difficulties, transferring knowledge, and securing alternatives or backups. There were likely several other alternatives that were explored before NASA settled on Russia.

Application to Your Writing

Problems should be anticipated by your characters. Though the plan to address those problems may not be something you choose to put in your novel, you, as the author, should know what that plan is so that your characters can execute it competently, before you throw the next crisis into their paths.

Logical Next Steps

What’s next for public/private collaboration in the space program? Astronaut Christina Koch thinks it’s great and that there should be more partnership in the future. By offloading the launch of satellites, the transportation of astronauts, and even research and development to SpaceX or other private corporations, NASA is effectively freed up to use its resources to focus on the longer term goals of returning to the moon, exploring Mars, and visiting other planets and moons in our solar system.

There are mutual benefits to public/private partnerships. For example, while NASA benefits from the development of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy (formerly teased as the BFR–I’ll let you figure that one out) rocket in terms of being able to launch longer-term missions, SpaceX benefits from having NASA invest in and use their technology.

Of course, some things don’t turn out as planned. What would happen if your private tech corporation invested millions only for your public space administration to elect to use another company’s innovation?

Taking It to the Page

I’ve already mentioned a few opportunities to create interesting plot points or conflict in your space-faring tale, but you don’t have to stop there. Similar dynamics will occur even in far future settings. Extrapolate from the current into your futuristic story.

There are also issues I haven’t touched on. If you’re writing alternate history or alternate reality stories, how does your altered timeline affect the drive to explore space? Are we still stuck in an era in which women and people of colour are denied opportunities to contribute to space exploration? Is there political interference? Is your world one of mega-corporations rather than national governments? If humanity evolved differently, what impact would that have on our desire to reach the stars?

Brainstorm possibilities and you’ll probably think up even more interesting ideas. I sincerely hope that this real-world news will spark your next creative project.

Until next time, keep speculating and see where it leads you!

References

• https://www.nasa.gov/specials/dm2/
• https://www.tpr.org/post/astronauts-view-spacexnasa-partnership
• https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Spacebound/2020/0525/SpaceX-and-NASA-unite-to-return-Americans-to-space
• https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-boeing-nasa-commercial-crew-program-launch-astronauts-2020-1

Melanie Marttila creates worlds from whole cloth. She’s a dreamsinger, an ink alchemist, and an unabashed learning mutt. Her speculative short fiction has appeared in Bastion Science Fiction Magazine, On Spec Magazine, and Sudbury Ink. She lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, where she spends her days working as a corporate trainer. She blogs at https://www.melaniemarttila.ca and you can find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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